


Hortus Vitreum

by wtfoctagon



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Hogwarts AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:43:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5424416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfoctagon/pseuds/wtfoctagon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Context: Nozomi is a muggleborn with very absent parents who don't write, nevermind signing her Hogsmeade forms. The other eight girls figure out a way to make it up to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hortus Vitreum

**Author's Note:**

> 41\. "You did all of this for me?"

“Come on, it’s not much farther now!”

Nozomi laughs as Eli pulls her along by her hand, mittens snugly caught in each other as they trip a little in the thick snow.

“Dragging me into a forest after a nice date? Kinda feels like I’m going to get murdered, Elicchi,” she pants, and Eli stops dead to whirl around, blue eyes all worry and alarm. Horror movie trope jokes are probably not a good choice to pull out, Nozomi thinks, as she laughs and squeezes Eli’s hand.

“What?” Eli hisses, blonde eyebrows reaching for each other in confusion as her pink lips purse. “Muggle joke?”

Nozomi nods, white breath flush between their faces.

“How… Odd,” Eli comments, before turning and tugging again, and Nozomi smiles to herself because Eli is so easily excited and so poised, like a small princess.

Princess Elichika. Nozomi laughs to herself again, and Eli shoots her a small look.

“Are you making fun of me again?”

Nozomi laughs as she steps over a snow lump, cloak catching on a  branch a little.

“Who, me? Perish the thought.”

Eli is unconvinced, pink cheeks a little pouty, though she’d never admit to it. Nozomi pushes up beside her and leans in to smile sweetly.

“Besides, I promise that if I’m making fun of you, I’ll always say it out loud.”

“Hey! What’s gotten into you?”

Nozomi laughs and dodges her swipe, running a little ahead before tripping over.

“Ha!” Eli smugly catches up to her, crossing her arms. “That’s what you get, after we went through all this trouble to sneak you out, too.”

Nozomi simply smiles and looks up at the sky, the snow, the halo in Eli’s hair and cotton-like specks on her cloak, and she knows Eli doesn’t mean it, not really, because she sees the things Eli thinks she can’t- the way she lied about how much the candy cost so Nozomi wouldn’t feel guilty, or the way she sent back the butterbeer at the bar because it wasn’t perfect, or how she keeps staring when she thinks Nozomi isn’t looking because she wants to make sure Nozomi’s having a good time.

“Sorry, Elicchi,” Nozomi says, trailing off into a hush. “I guess I’m just giddy.”

Eli’s smug smile falls and settles into a soft stare, the one she gives Nozomi during quiet nights and afternoons in the common room, wrapped together in a blanket.

“Come on,” she says, reaching a hand out, “We don’t have time to make a snow angel.”

Nozomi takes the help and smiles. “I’m surprised you know what a snow angel is-ah!”

Cold plops into her back and cloak again as Eli drops her at that, and they both laugh. Eli reaches out her hands again and Nozomi just raises an eyebrow, leaning up on her elbows.

“Gonna drop me again?”

Eli rolls her eyes. “Come on already. I want us to have as much time possible before we have to head back.”

“Shouldn’t you know you should never rush your date?” Nozomi pouts as she takes her hands and pulls. “Maybe Umi should have taken me instead.”

Warmth in Nozomi’s chest blossoms along with Eli’s blush.

“I-I told you I didn’t know they were gonna leave us alone!” Eli pouts, and fidgets with her mittens a little, and Nozomi wants to kiss her right on her blushing cheeks. “Anyway! We’re here.”

Nozomi follows Eli’s flourish of the hand, and looks around expectantly at the frozen pond in front of them. 

“I’m…. impressed by this frozen pond?” Nozomi tries, earning her a light punch on the arm.

“Stop it. It hasn’t started yet,” Eli laughs, struggling with tugging a piece of parchment from her pocket. She squints at it, wand tracing along the writing, mouth twisting a bit like it always does when she’s concentrating, and Nozomi smiles.

“Who let Honoka write the instructions…” she mutters under her breath, and Nozomi giggles into her mittens. Eli shoots her a wry look before clearing her throat and raising her wand at the centre of the pond.

_“Crescere.”_

A small green light under the middle of the ice starts pulsing as it grows brighter, small cracks and tendrils of light feeling through the ice like roots. Once they get a strong hold in the pond, the light grows out of the centre, rising a few feet before mirroring the movements under the pond and branching; with a bright flash, it finishes its transformation and the green light dims into a pure white bark, silver leaves shivering out of the branches accompanied by nine differently coloured bauble-fruits.

“Wow,” Nozomi breathes, smiling, exhilaration cascading in her chest. “I’m guessing that’s Hanayo’s handiwork?”

“With Kotori and Honoka helping out with the enchantment,” Eli says, squinting at the parchment again. “They experimented on the far side of the lake until they got it right.”

Nozomi giggles. “Is that why they came back covered in mud every so often?”

Eli only smiles at her before tucking the parchment under her armpit and raising her wand again. 

“Shh. It’s not finished yet.” She squeezes Nozomi’s hand- Nozomi didn’t even notice when they started holding hands again- and brings her wand down in a twirling motion.  _“Nix halysis. Exilio discurro. Initium incantatem.”_

That’s a lot of spells, Nozomi’s about to tease, when the purple bauble falls to the ice and bursts into a small racoon made of light, and she squeaks a little. 

“That’s adorable. Is that supposed to be me?”

“Shh,” Eli whispers towards her cheek, squeezing her hand again. “Just watch.”

The raccoon curls its tail around itself and shivers, and striking one of Nozomi’s heartstrings. The pink bauble crashes down right on top of the small raccoon, sparkling into a panda cub that noses the raccoon’s side, then the red bauble falls, revealing a panther that lazily grooms itself before curling around the both of them. 

Nozomi watches, jaw going slack, heartstrings being plucked one after the other in stricken chords as the baubles fall to show animals: a sparrow, a bunny, a fox, another bear cub, a cat, a deer, all coming to the raccoon and comforting or loving it in one way or another, in ways Nozomi can recognize and attribute to somebody, until there’s just a pile of animals dancing around one another and the tree. The raccoon yaps happily and Nozomi clenches Eli’s hand, nerves shuddering.

The raccoon then stops and stares straight into Nozomi’s eyes, green looking into green, and the animals come to a stop around it. One by one, they dissolve into white mist that swirls into the raccoon, until it’s alone once again, staring right into all of Nozomi’s vulnerabilities.

She steps closer to Eli when the raccoon approaches.

“It’s okay. It wants to give you something.”

Sure enough, there’s something shining in its mouth as it sits by Nozomi’s feet, tilting its face upwards in an offer; Nozomi crouches and the animal drops the shining trinket into her mitten before disappearing in a silver wisp as well.

“A ring,” Nozomi breathes, standing up as she clumsily cradles the small silver band on her mitten palms, marvelling at the small purple jewel embedded among the intricate gold inlays and engravings.

“Put it on,” Eli says, excitedly, hands coming up just shy of tugging Nozomi’s mitten off herself. Nozomi gives her an absent, lopsided grin before hesitantly pulling off her left mitten, ring tucked carefully under her thumb.

Eli’s practically vibrating with excitement, when the ring touches Nozomi’s finger; she winces as she slides the cold metal on, eyes widening in surprise as the silver warms to pleasant glow almost immediately, the purple jewel lighting up.

Nozomi looks up at Eli.

“It’s beautiful.”

Eli tugs her own mitten off and Nozomi’s throat dries up when she sees the identical ring on Eli’s hand, with a sky blue jewel, also shining like Nozomi’s.

“All nine of us have a matching set now,” Eli beams, lifting her hand next to Nozomi’s. “Umi made them out of some goblin silver we managed to have sent to us, and Honoka and I enchanted them.”

“They’re magic?” Nozomi asks, mouth feeling fuzzy and head feeling light as she stares at the two rings, ring hand trembling a little. 

Eli laughs. “Of course. There’s little things like how they light up when we’re near each other. Honoka made it so that we can signal our locations to each other when we’re lost, and I managed to figure out how to allow us to call each other for help, or send short messages.”

She smiles and takes Nozomi’s hands, guiding her eyes back up. 

“Now none of us will ever be really alone.”

The fondness sparkling in Eli’s eyes, reflecting the falling snow specks around them, is far too much, honestly, and Nozomi feels a familiar burn tinging at the top of her throat and edges of her eyes.

“You did all of this for me?” she asks through a throat congested with feeling, looking back down at their clasped hands.

“It was Maki’s idea. She hated seeing how… sad you looked every holiday or every time we went to Hogsmeade. None of us ever really want to leave you on your own like that,” Eli smiles at her, bonking their foreheads together lightly. 

She can’t help it. Her face cracks with a sob and her shoulders shake with the disbelief.

“Nozomi?” Eli says, trilling voice all alarm and worry again, hands coming to rub her arms. “You-you’re crying- what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry,” Nozomi manages, through crying chokes and gasps, “No one’s ever- not for me-”

She can’t put the words together but Eli understands, somehow, because she wraps her arms around her and squeezes tightly, as if she’s trying to crush the sadness and loneliness in Nozomi. 

“I’m sorry, it’s- it’s stupid-” 

The rest of her apologies are muffled by Eli’s shoulder as she’s held even tighter, and she can hear Eli’s heart beating hard and fast through her warm chest. Snowdrops melt on her flushed face, dripping into her tears as Eli gently pulls away and takes her other mitten off to lay both hands on her cheeks.

“It’s not stupid,” she insists, ardent blue fire and hard ice. “We all care so much- I care.”

Their breaths fog into each other and Nozomi can see, in detail, a snowflake land on Eli’s nose before becoming molten crystal. 

Eli’s eyelids butterfly shut as she leans in, and Nozomi closes her eyes as well- for a moment, there’s nothing but Eli’s cold fingertips on her face and melted snow drops in her scalp. Soft lips like frozen peaches press into hers- the second kiss is a little firmer, a little warmer, and by the third Eli’s lips are gentle and tender against hers.

When Eli pulls away Nozomi buries her face into the gryffindor scarf and clutches Eli as tightly to her as she possibly can, mitten hand pawing at the back of her cloak while her other grasps into the thick material. 

“I-I’m sorry, was that not okay-”

Nozomi cuts her off by shaking her head vigorously into her scarf before reaching up to kiss Eli once, twice, and again, much clumsier and giddy this time, teeth clacking a little, and they laugh. 

The ring on her finger warms as her heart sings, and she feels so shaky with euphoria that she might burst or shatter into a million pieces- but it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay from now on, and forever.

* * *

 

**Bonus:**

Kotori sighs as Umi wrestles down Rin and Honoka from revealing their hiding spot behind a snow pile. 

“She’s hogging Nozomi-chan,” Rin whines, and Umi gives her another threatening squeeze.

“We’ll get to see her later.”

Kotori wonders why they’re even here, when they collectively agreed to give the two some privacy- but no matter. She understands- she really, really wanted to see the look on Nozomi’s face when she saw their hard work, and she wipes at her eyes again as she thinks of it. Umi had to keep Rin from bawling as Kotori and Hanayo hugged each other tightly, sniffling. 

Honoka gasps when the couple kiss, finally settling down, and Nico lets out a delighted squeal into her scarf. But Kotori should know that the peace never lasts, especially when she spies Maki’s petulant frown.

“Maki-chan, what- no  _don’t_!” Hanayo shrieks, lunging for Maki’s elbow, too late. A snowball is already hurtling towards Eli’s face with devastating Nishikino accuracy and Kotori just. Sighs.


End file.
